Clothes and the men—Love of adornment—Natives who are not keen on
eating—Methods of cooking their food—Betel-nut chewing.
The native dress of the Solomon islanders is even more scanty than that
of their neighbours the New Guinea natives. Usually the sole clothing
of the men consists of a “T”-shaped garment encircling their waists and
passing between their legs. Unmarried women and children fail to see
any necessity for clothing at all, except those in places where the
missionaries have brought their influence to bear; then a loin cloth is
worn similar to that used by the natives of Fiji, Samoa, and Honolulu,
to cover their nakedness.
Though the Solomon islanders do not clothe their bodies with cloth,
they endeavour to cover as much flesh as they can with ornaments and
flowers, and a keen competition is kept up in the discovery {105}
of new ornamental shells, and in trade articles with which to adorn
themselves.
[Illustration 35: NATIVE OF NEW GEORGIA WEARING SUNSHADE, A SORT OF
CROWNLESS HAT MADE OF GRASSES: IT CAN BE WORN AT ANY ANGLE.]
The men are always attempting to rival each other in this respect, and
go through endless torture as a result. They wear tight armlets, heavy
ear-rings, anklets, and nose-rings, the weight and discomfort of which
would be more than most white men could stand.
Shell necklaces are among the most handsome of native ornaments, and
they are made from various kinds of shells, cut and ground down, and in
some cases beautifully polished. The Tredacua shells are most popular,
and portions of them are converted into most artistic ornaments.
Armlets are made of these shells, but it is a most tedious job and
takes the maker ages to accomplish, as the circle is generally cut out
with a rough piece of iron and then finished off by a course of rubbing
with sand. Both men and women wear armlets, and, as most of them are
placed on their arms when they are quite young, they become extremely
tight as the wearer grows up, and look as if they would destroy the use
of the limb. For some unexplained reason, these bracelets seem to have
little or no effect on the circulation of the blood, which compels one
to notice that custom is responsible for many quaint problems. {106}
The most extraordinary ornaments, however, are the grotesque ear-rings
worn by the men. When quite young, a small hole is pierced in the lobe
of the ear, generally with a stone, and the opening thus made is filled
with a piece of banana leaf wound up and twisted so that it acts as a
spring, continually enlarging the hole until it is big enough to be
filled by a piece of wood, or circular looking-glass, or any other
quaint thing the possessor of the hole can get to put in it.
Some of these holes are considerably bigger than the man’s ear.
Lieutenant Boyle T. Somerville, who made a point of studying these
particular natives, says that he measured one native’s lobe hole and
found it was four inches in diameter, and Dr. Guppy states that he has
seen natives carrying their pipes and matches in these gaps, and on
one occasion he saw Taki, the Wano chief, with a heavy bunch of native
shell money hanging from each ear. Taki said it was a sign of mourning
for a recently deceased wife—it certainly needed some explanation.
Nose-rings and other nose ornaments form another disfigurement for
which these natives have a weakness. Lately the women have taken to
making very pretty ornaments of trade beads, which they {107} work
into curious designs and arrange with peculiar mixtures of colour; some
are also ornamented with wild flowers, and present an almost artistic
appearance.
[Illustration 36: A RUBIANA NATIVE, SOLOMON ISLANDS
This portrait shows a native wearing large ear-rings; the lobe of
the ear passes round the wooden ring. In travelling through dense
forest they take the wooden rings out and tie the long ear-lobes
under the chin. The gorget of pearl shell with a fretted-out MBELEMA
(frigate-birds) suspended round the neck is supposed to invite the
protection of the spirit called “PONDA.” The man’s hair is turned
yellow by the use of lime. The armlets are of shell and hair or grass;
the design on the ear-rings may be a frigate-bird _motive_; it is made
of pearl shell let into the wood.]
In Rubiana strange native methods of hair doing can be seen. Some men’s
is cut in the most fantastic way and ornamented with bright plumes and
flowers, and occasionally one possessing an extra fine crop of bushy
hair will have it propped up with a piece of old hoop iron, and then if
he can get hold of a comb, as he often can, he sticks it through the
hair and the effect is weird.
Some also bleach their hair and make it the colour of straw, though
this is not met with as often as in Samoa, where I have seldom seen
a native without bleached hair, or without hair that shows signs of
having been bleached at one time.
The same custom of shaving the head when in mourning is in vogue here
as in New Guinea. Tattooing, however, is not nearly so popular, and
very few natives in New Georgia show any signs of it. In place of it
they paint their faces with lime, and look rather like clowns.
Raised cicatrices are very popular, and some quaint designs are worked
on their bodies. Lots of natives have a porpoise and a frigate bird
carved in {108} this fashion on their bodies. Most of the designs are
extremely crude, owing, no doubt, to the custom of the boys who cut
them on each other with rough shells.
Regarding their food and their ways of cooking it, and even the hours
of having it, the natives are very happy-go-lucky, and there seems to
be a free and easy sort of dropping in on each other when the smell of
cooking is in the air, and of partaking of anything that is going. Mr.
Hardy himself witnessed a peculiar incident of this kind at Simbo. A
native had been out collecting eggs laid by some bird which hides them
in the sand, and on returning the native went into an old chief’s house
near the shore, where a small fire was burning on the floor just inside
the door, and began stirring the inside of the eggs up in a piece of
cocoa-nut shell. This he placed on the fire and continued stirring for
a few minutes. Then apparently getting tired of the operation he got up
and sauntered off. His place was immediately taken by another native,
who also stirred for a while and then ate some of the mixture. Whether
the eggs were not to his taste, or the mixture was too hot is not
known, but he made a terrible face, put the shell back on the fire, and
walked out of the hut.
[Illustration 37: A STORMY DAY IN RUBIANA LAGOON, SOLOMON ISLANDS]
{109}
Two other natives tried their hand at the concoction and left it as
he had, and presently the original owner came back and finished the
remnants. During the whole of this scene the old chief sat unconcerned,
and amused himself playing with a club for which Hardy gave him a piece
of tobacco. The chief’s heart having thus been won, he pulled down a
magnificently carved club from the eaves of the house. It was carefully
wrapped up in palm leaves, and the old man handled it with the greatest
reverence and care, but beyond the fact that it was a ceremonial club
he was unable to explain anything about it or for what special ceremony
it was used, as his English was not over strong.
No amount of tobacco, however, would tempt him to part with it—the very
idea of selling it seemed to hurt him.
After hiding it away he next produced an old musical box and requested
Hardy and Dr. Willey to “make him sing.” The instrument was sadly out
of order, but after a little manipulation they were able to get it to
grind out fragments of _Faust_, with long stops between every few bars.
This, however, did not bother the old man in the least, the delight on
his face was grand, and he was so pleased that, after hearing the noise
for about {110} ten minutes, he took the musicians all over the little
village.
It was a curious place, huts were dotted here and there in an artistic
disorder among the palms and banana trees. The chief led the way, and
behind him, following like a well-trained dog, was his slave, a man
belonging to some other tribe, and quite different in appearance and
physique from the natives in Simbo. It is customary to keep slaves for
various reasons besides that of service—if a human head is needed in a
hurry, the slave’s is handy. Crowds of little children and pigs were
running in and out amongst the scrub, and both seemed to take a great
interest in the white visitors.
After endeavouring to explain many interesting things, the chief took
his guests to his private house, which was a well-built roomy place,
after the style of an ordinary farm-barn, with low walls and a deep
slanting roof. The inside was perfectly destitute of furniture, and the
only place on which to sit was the floor, or a low shelf, which the old
man probably used for a bed when he wanted one. Close to the house, and
sheltered from the burning sun, was a very fine kai-kai dish, which the
chief showed them with much pride.
[Illustration 38: COOKING THE MEAL, BRITISH NEW GUINEA]
It was on a small platform raised some four feet {111} from the ground,
and underneath it there were signs of a recent fire. In size the trough
was considerably larger than an ordinary coffin and somewhat like one
in shape, though at each end there was a piece of carved wood. This
one, the chief explained, was not used for cooking human beings, but
for mixing and cooking food on feast days.
When explaining this fact, Mr. Hardy says, though I can only take his
word for it, as I was not there, that the chief looked at him with
a hungry eye and murmured to Dr. Willey, “He go in nicee, make good
kai-kai.”
But to return to native diet: sago, taro, sweet potato, sugar-cane,
bananas, and a very poor kind of bread fruit, constitute their chief
vegetable food; fish and occasionally a pig are their only other
eatables. The cooking of these articles is generally done in rough
bowls or in a European iron pot. When anything special is going to be
eaten it is broiled in an earth oven. Betel-nut chewing, however, seems
almost to satisfy these natives, for their meals are most erratic, and
they often only take a small piece of fish with them when they are
going out for a whole day’s tramp or work.
The method of chewing betel-nut is rather interesting. The nut is
about the size of a walnut. {112} This they place in their mouth
with a green leaf and chew it. When it is well under way they dip a
small stick into their lime gourds and add a modicum of lime or ground
coral to it. The effect of this mixture is, so some say, equal to a
glass of good grog, but, though it acts as a strong stimulant, the
natives do not seem to suffer any ill effects from it. Chewing is in
no way restricted to the males, both women and young girls favour the
practice, and relish the betel-nut as a great dainty.
{113}